Bride Price Payback in Mt. Hagen

In Papua New Guinea, marriages are arranged through a bride price ceremony, where a groom presents the bride's side with a combination of money, livestock, and other gifts (like vegetables, chickens, cassowaries, etc.). While we were in Mt. Hagen we stayed at the Haus Poroman Lodge, which is up in the mountains just outside of Mt. Hagen. The lodge's owner is married to a local guy, and one of his cousins happened to have been married just 7 days before we arrived. As per local custom, a week after the bride price there is a bride price payback, where 30-50% of the bride price is given back to the groom's side. Because were were staying at the lodge, we were invited to the bride price payback ceremony. The opportunity to participate in something like this (authentic, rather than staged for tourism) is rare, and all of us were grateful for the experience.

Both sides of the family lined up around a pile of bananas and vegetables in the open area just up the hill from the lodge (where the village was), and four pigs were brought out and tied to stakes. Old men got up to make long, elaborate speeches in the rapid-fire local dialect, and various people were rewarded (with money) for their roles in the matchmaking and marriage. There was also a traditional mumu, where a pig and vegetables are buried in the earth on top of fire-heated stones covered with leaves. Hungry participants squated around the mumu hole and ate directly from its unearthed contents. We had our own mumu at the lodge, but it was served in a rather different way. :)